Customer Rating:      Summary: Picture & Audio Problems Comment: I was a devoted Sony buyer but the reviews for this was so good and the touch of color was attractive. Big mistake. There was no sound coming from the HDMI, and there were flashes of color across the bottom of the screen every few seconds. I called Samsung customer support who advised that the HDMI port must be damaged and the nearest service center is 40 miles away. No thank you. I returned this set and went back to my first love - Sony - who has never let me down. I purchased the Sony Bravia L-Series KDL-22L4000 for a few extra bucks, but well worth it. This is my first and last Samsung purchase.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Excellent tv for it's size Comment: Sadly enough tv manufacturer's usually reserve the good video processing hardware for their larger tvs, but still charge too much for their small models. On top of that small tvs usually have poor contrast. This tv is different, it has excellent contrast and superb video processing. It's colors are accurate and also not over-saturated, which makes it look closer to a crt or a plasma than they would their kin, other lcds.
The contrast on this tv is much better than I've seen on any other small tv. It is worth the extra money. Of course the black levels are still not deep enough for viewing in a dark room, but it resolves a tremendous amount of detail in dark scenes, and I think that's what counts.
The backlight is not uniform-- there is clouding and there are flashlights in the corners. However putting energy saver on low dims the tv only a little but seems to really clear up those backlight problems.
You should know that there is a funny issue with the vertical viewing angle. You would expect the tv to look best when eye level is at the center screen. In this tv that's not actually the case. Funny enough the tv's midpoint needs to actually be below eye level. That's very peculiar for a tv! I've never seen that before. If you position your tv too high relative to eye level (without swiveling it down) you will face below axis viewing and alot of detail will disappear into darkness. THIS IS WHY MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THE PICTURE IS TOO DARK! It's actually fine if you set it a little bit lower than usual. I find that the usual 2-2 1/2 ft entertainment stand is just about the right height to find the sweet spot. Any higher and you'll have to use a mount and swivel it down. Not only will the picture look too dark off axis, but the colors will appear to be over saturated and you'll think that there is a red push on skin tones, when there actually is not.
The horizontal viewing angles are actually pretty wide, which is surprising for such a small tv.
Another funny thing is that the resolution is not an hd standard, Samsung clearly used a monitor panel because the resolution is 1680x1050 . It's advertised as 720p because that's the minimum standard that the tv can fully resolve. That resolution of 1680x1050 is near 1080p (and it accepts and downconverts 1080p signals) and the scalar and deinterlacer are exceptional, same quality you would expect from a high end tv and sd looks very good, and hd and dvd look exceptionally sharp, even up within a ft or so from the tv. Even though that's not as important for small tvs, it's very nice that Samsung accounted for the non-standard resolution by providing great video processing.
I'm not a big fan of lcds, however you don't have much choice for small tvs, and tube tvs are gone now. They're not sold by the main companies and I needed a tv. I've had two lcds before, and their colors felt wrong, very lcd-like. This tv feels accurate in it's colors. My favorite movies look the same as what they did on my Panasonic crt that I had a few years back (and I loved that tv). I think that cold lamp technology is not just a marketing gimmick, I think it's real. Colors don't look oversatured and bright like neon lights, they look correct, and there seems to be a subtle but distinct wide range in the color palette.
There's one little irritating feature that I should mention. Just scan does not work correctly (it's supposed to eliminate overscan), and it clearly was designed for 16:9 tvs, and not 16:10 tvs which this one is. Just scan tends to crop to fill the screen, that is does exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do! Using conventional settings that don't crop or stretch, you will have to live with black bars no matter what you're watching. The good news is that the black bars are small on 4:3 and 16:9, and only big when you're watching 2.35:1 and 2.40:1 movies.
The number of hookups on this tv is very limited, just one for each. I use my receiver to run everything through, but it would still would have been nice to have at least one more hdmi port.
To summarize, despite some drawbacks that I've clearly listed this is an exceptional tv, provided that you are happy with the drawbacks, as I am.
Customer Rating:      Summary: My new LN22A650 after a few days Comment: I bought my new LN22A650 from Amazon on 12/28/08 and it arrived as scheduled 01/02/09. So far, I love it and can't wait for the Dish folks to show up this week with my upgraded HD receivers and different dish. I can't imagine that it could be any better but we'll soon know. I've seen some reviews about the poor sound quality. Out of the box, it wasn't very good but there are several options in the menu to change the sound and it improved it dramatically. In fact, I think it sounds great now. Obviously, it would sound better with an external amp and speakers but for an internal speaker system, it's as good as any. Not sure why they don't just start with it as good as it can be but I guess it gives the button pushing electro-gurus great pleasure in tinkering with the innards.
The "red" Touch of Color is blended in very well with the black bezel and attractive. I just can't find fault with the set in performance or cosmetics.
Anyway, just wanted to say, I'm happy with the set, the service and the prompt shipping. I have a PN50A650 on the way too. Will report on it as soon as it's all set up.....
Customer Rating:      Summary: Great TV for HD Comment: We put this in our kitchen, and viewing angles are excellent. Very high quality HD picture.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Samsung really went wrong with this one. Comment: This was my first Samsung after being a Sony fan for over 20 years and I was not impressed. Auto setup would not recognize digital channels, Samsung said it may have been a bad tuner.
The remote control is by far one of the worst designed and shaped I've ever had. What were the designers thinking?
Otherwise it was a great looking picture.
|